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Emirates Planes Could Be Going Windowless (abc.net.au)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the future, you could find yourself booking an Emirates flight without a real window seat. The airline has just unveiled a new first class suite on board its latest aircraft that features "virtual windows" instead of real ones. The President of Emirates, Tim Clarke, is hoping it will pave the way for removing all windows from future planes, which he says will make them lighter and faster. "What we may have [in the next 20 years] is aircraft that are, and I hate to say this to a number of passengers, windowless," he told the BBC. So there's no windows on the outside ... But Mr Clarke says on the inside there will be "a full display of windows," which will beam in the images from the outside. This will be done using fibre-optic camera technology. So, instead of being able to see directly outside, passengers will view images projected from outside the aircraft -- which is almost like the real thing.
They want to take away the ONE THING I love about flying? Seeing the world from above the clouds is beautiful and helps make the hellish experience of commercial airline travel bearable.
What the hell is wrong with these airlines?
I was on a plane with a fuel leak from a fuel pump cover on the wing. Pointed it out to the flight attendant, one of the pilots walked back and looked out the window. He determined that it wasn't severe enough to be a concern, and we made a normal landing at our destination (we were only about 40 min away when this happened).